The Rotary Club of Gainesville is celebrating its centennial anniversary on Saturday by kicking off the new Midland Music Fest.
This music festival is a one-day event at the recently renovated Midland Park. Festival organizer Tommy Howard said that Midland Music Fest will be a fun, fundraising event for the community.
“Part of it was to have an opportunity for fundraising, but to also do something to commemorate our centennial,” Howard said. “We talked to the City of Gainesville, and the opportunity that came out of it was to eventually put a permanent amphitheater in the Midland Greenway. We wanted to do something that was in conjunction with that.”
The festival gates will open at 5 p.m.. Local Gainesville band Cardboard Willie will start the music at 6 p.m.. Then headliner 7 Bridges Band, an Eagles cover band, will take the stage around 8 p.m..
Spots will be first-come, first-serve, and attendees should bring their own blankets or chairs.
“We're gonna have food trucks, we're gonna have a beer garden, so there'll be lots of things to do,” Howard said. “It's gonna be a great event.”
Tickets can be purchased for $15 ahead of the event at https://www.midlandmusicfest.com/. The day of the event, tickets will be $20. Sponsors have already sold out the VIP section.
Funds will benefit The Rotary Club of Gainesville Centennial Project and the Hart Joiner Endowment Fund for Children & Youth.
The Hard Joiner Endowment Fund for Children and Youth is an organization within the Rotary Club of Gainesville that assists local children and has been collecting funds for 15 years.
“We do different things,” Howard said. “That may be to help with a scholarship, it could potentially be for a child who's fighting an illness of some sort to maybe allow them to achieve a dream that they wanted to do.”
Howard said he hopes the festival will become an annual event.
“We would like to actually see this if this could be a weekend-long festival, that maybe goes Friday to Sunday during Memorial Day weekend. That's our ultimate goal.”
